All right, y’all. Listen up. There’s this egg on Instagram. And it’s amazing. As of noon on January 15th, an anonymous account received over 35 million likes on an Instagram post of an egg. Just an egg.
This isn’t an entirely unique occurrence. The internet is extremely capable of quickly creating huge groups of people dedicated to a single goal. For example, in March 2016, a British research group called the Natural Environment Research Council needed a name for their new boat, and so opened up an online poll. The winning name got over 124,000 thousand votes, the consensus being that this 287 million dollar polar research ship was to be named Boaty McBoatface.
People had many different reasons behind liking this egg.
“Because it’s a beautiful egg,” said freshman Megan McDaniel.
As of Tuesday, January 22, the egg had grown to have over 50 million likes.
“Egg is God,” said senior Asa O’Callaghan.
Freshman Dayanara Moreno also had positive thoughts about it.
“I think it’s awesome!” she said. “It’s shocking to me sometimes how our society has changed so much from what we read about in a textbook. It’s kind of funny, actually.”
Entrepreneur and social media star Kylie Jenner held the previous record of 18 million likes on a post of her and her daughter Stormi Webster. Junior Catherine Desplancke explained why she liked the post of the egg.
“I don’t like Kylie Jenner,” she said.
Other people were surprised by the egg’s popularity.
“I didn’t think a simple egg would be able to top Kylie Jenner, because she’s a celebrity,” said freshman Alyssa Samuels.
Moreno felt similarly.
“This just shows how powerful something as small as this can make people feel so powerful, just because it got more likes than a celebrity,” she said.
Many Bruins who didn’t like the egg had reasons as to why they didn’t.
“It’s pointless to like an egg,” said Samuels. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
Sophomore Faith Kelley had a similar reason.
“I didn’t [like the egg],” she said. “I think it’s dumb.”
Samuels elaborated about her thoughts on the popularity of the post.
“I think that it shows how we are all just followers and we strive for stupid goals just because we want to be part of a bandwagon,” she said.
Others felt the same way about how this reflects our society.
“We are all just followers and we do whatever the person in front of us is doing and the person in front of them and so on,” said Moreno. “It’s kind of like we’ve lost the ability to think and make decisions for ourselves.”
On January 22nd, the same account posted another picture of an egg that had a crack in the top and, on January 23rd, a third picture was posted where the crack had grown. How far will this go?
